E. The Plan of the Book

• Author: Patrick J. Monahan - Byron Shaw
• Pages: 23-28

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As the title suggests, this book provides an overview of the rules and principles that define and structure the exercise of state power in Canada. Part Two of the book begins in Chapter 2 with a description of the manner in which Canada’s political institutions evolved before the enactment of the BNA Act (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867). This chapter describes how rules of British law became incorporated in the law of the British North American colonies. It also describes how institutions of representative government, as well as the constitutional conventions relating to responsible government, developed in British North America in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The chapter also describes the events leading up to the enactment of the BNA Act.

Chapter 3 examines the executive and legislative institutions that were continued or established by the Constitution Act, 1867. We describe the power and role of the Crown and the process whereby the prime minister and the Cabinet are appointed to office. The principles of responsible government are examined in detail, particularly the issue of the extent to which the governor general continues to possess any "reserve" power to act other than on the advice of the prime minister. We discuss the governor general’s decisions to prorogue Parliament following the development of a coalition government in 2008 and 2009. Furthermore, the legislative process by which bills are introduced, debated, and passed by Parliament or the provincial legislatures, is also described and analyzed.

Chapter 4 describes the provisions in the Constitution Act, 1867 dealing with federalism and the judiciary. The division of powers be-

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tween the federal and provincial orders of government is described, with particular emphasis on the degree to which the drafters of the Act attempted to centralize powers in the hands of the federal Parliament. An overview of the structure of the courts in Canada is provided, and the constitutional guarantees of judicial independence and tenure in sections 96 to 100 are reviewed. The significance and implications of the principle of the rule of law, recognized in the preamble to the 1982 constitution, are also discussed.

Part Three of the book describes the history of and the contemporary rules for constitutional change in Canada. Chapter 5 examines the evolution of the BNA Act between 1867 and 1982. We examine the manner in which the Act was amended, and how Canada gradually achieved political and legal independence from Great Britain. We also examine the repeated attempts to "patriate" the Canadian constitution so as to provide a domestic amending formula, and how these attempts failed to meet with success over a period of fifty years. The process ultimately leading to the agreement between the federal government and nine provinces in November 1981, followed by the "patriation" of the constitution in April 1982, is outlined and discussed.

Chapter 6...